DURING the two or two and a half years of my apprenticeship,I served under many pilots, and had experience of manykinds of steamboatmen and many varieties of steamboats;for it was not always convenient for Mr. Bixby to have mewith him, and in such cases he sent me with somebody else.

I am to this day profiting somewhat by that experience;for in that brief, sharp schooling, I got personally and familiarlyacquainted with about all the different types of human naturethat are to be found in fiction, biography, or history.

The fact is daily borne in upon me, that the average shore-employmentrequires as much as forty years to equip a man with this sortof an education. When I say I am still profiting by this thing,I do not mean that it has constituted me a judge of men--no, it has not done that; for judges of men are born, not made.

My profit is various in kind and degree; but the feature of itwhich I value most is the zest which that early experience hasgiven to my later reading. When I find a well-drawn characterin fiction or biography, I generally take a warm personalinterest in him, for the reason that I have known him before--met him on the river.

The figure that comes before me oftenest, out of the shadows of thatvanished time, is that of Brown, of the steamer 'Pennsylvania'--the manreferred to in a former chapter, whose memory was so good and tiresome.

He was a middle-aged, long, slim, bony, smooth-shaven, horse-faced, ignorant,stingy, malicious, snarling, fault hunting, mote-magnifying tyrant.

I early got the habit of coming on watch with dread at my heart.

No matter how good a time I might have been having with the off-watch below,and no matter how high my spirits might be when I started aloft, my soulbecame lead in my body the moment I approached the pilot-house.

I still remember the first time I ever entered the presence of that man.

The boat had backed out from St. Louis and was 'straightening down;'

I ascended to the pilot-house in high feather, and very proudto be semi-officially a member of the executive family of so fastand famous a boat. Brown was at the wheel. I paused in the middleof the room, all fixed to make my bow, but Brown did not look around.

I thought he took a furtive glance at me out of the corner of his eye,but as not even this notice was repeated, I judged I had been mistaken.

By this time he was picking his way among some dangerous 'breaks' abreastthe woodyards; therefore it would not be proper to interrupt him; so Istepped softly to the high bench and took a seat.

There was silence for ten minutes; then my new boss turnedand inspected me deliberately and painstakingly from headto heel for about--as it seemed to me--a quarter of an hour.

After which he removed his countenance and I saw it no morefor some seconds; then it came around once more, and thisquestion greeted me--'Are you Horace Bigsby's cub?'

分享到：